The Chronicle of the American Condition

Mar 11, 2010

Judge: ACORN Funding Must Be Unblocked

A federal judge who found it
unconstitutional that Congress tried to cut funding to the activist
group ACORN has rejected a government request to change her mind and
has ordered government agencies to make it clear the funding isn't
blocked.

In a written ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nina
Gershon made permanent her conclusion last year that the cutoff of
funding was unconstitutional. She ordered all federal agencies to put
the word out about it.

The Brooklyn judge said ACORN was
punished by Congress without the enactment of administrative processes
to decide if money had been handled inappropriately. She said the harm
to ACORN's reputation continues because the government never rescinded
its advice to withhold funding after it was distributed to "hundreds,
if not thousands, of recipients."

Last
year, a series of videos filmed at ACORN offices around the country
sparked a national scandal and helped drive the organization to near
ruin. In one video, ACORN employees were shown apparently advising a
couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend to lie about her
profession and launder her earnings; Brooklyn prosecutors said they did
not commit a crime.

In asking the judge to reconsider her
December ruling, the government cited a Dec. 7 report written by Scott
Harshbarger, former attorney general for Massachusetts. It said the
report "reinforces Congress' purpose in preventing fraud, waste and
abuse" by describing ACORN's long-standing management problems.

The report concluded that ACORN leadership at every level was thin, the government noted.

The
judge, however, wrote that it was "unmistakable that Congress
determined ACORN's guilt before defunding it." She said Congress is
entitled to investigate ACORN but cannot "rely on the negative results
of a congressional or executive report as a rationale to impose a
broad, punitive funding ban on a specific, named organization."